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Tag: illegitimate

The author needs book reviews to sell their books, and of course they want great. Authors who study their expertise, conduct research, and produce quality and well-written books, deserve good support, and by putting the right time and effort, such writers usually receive praise from reviewers. But even good books can accept bad reviews – and I don’t mean reviews that say negative things about books. I am talking about what is written by people who do not qualify, no matter how valuable, to write it down. Why don’t they qualify? Because they don’t read books.

Let’s face it. Books are businesses, and reviewers know the authors need them. Free reviews are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Reviewers are now paid for their services, and they should; their time is valuable, and reading books and writing decent reviews can take hours. The author must be prepared to pay for the service and to realize that it is a business investment, such as advertising and marketing, where money is invested in the hope of generating book sales.

But irresponsible people – let’s say they are illegitimate book reviewers – are willing to prey on the needs of the writers. They realize that they can make money from an author without providing legitimate services. Let’s say you make $ 100 for each book you review, and you need eight hours to read a book. That’s $ 100 a day. But isn’t it good to make $ 200 or $ 400 or $ 1,200 a day? What if, instead of reading a book, you just took it, or did you just spit out what the back cover said? Think about how much counterfeit money you can make, and how much money you can make, while giving the writer what they want. So what if the review is only four sentences? As long as you give it five stars on Amazon, the author will be happy, right? Cha-ching!

Unfortunately, yes, in many cases, the author is happy. But most of them are self-publishing writers for businesses who are fortunate to get accurate descriptions of their books. I already know many writers like that are raving about how their books are rated by one of these “honorable” or “top” reviewers, often close to the top ranks on Amazon.

Initially when I started offering book reviews, I realized that there was no way I would ever rank in the Top 10 Amazon, not because my reviews didn’t have quality or I didn’t cover the book enough, but just because I wasn’t a robot, and I actually read books . If you look at the list of Amazon’s top Amazon reviewers, many of them have reviewed more than 5,000 books. If you are a service with several staff reviewers, that number is understandable, but most of the top ranks are individuals. How could this happen? Even if it’s your full-time job and you can read books a day, or even two books a day, it’s only ten weeks or about five hundred a year. You have to review on Amazon for ten years to break 5,000. Okay, I think it’s possible, but look at some of the top ones on Amazon. Some of them have been posted up to fifteen books a day. Yes, some of them are legal and write quality articles, so I don’t mean to underestimate those people.

Indeed, some of these people may be speed readers, but the jury is still out on the legitimacy of reading speed. I have a friend who claims to be a speed reader. I gave him three mystery novels to read that he returned to me the next day. When I asked him if he already knew who the killer was in a book, he could not remember “whodunit.” If you read very fast you can’t maintain the basic flow, you don’t really read a book.

Even worse, some of these papers have nothing to say that an author can even use them. I have seen some that are only three or four sentence summary plots without anything that says the book is “good, good, interesting, or not to be missed.” An author cannot get a description for the back cover if the review only summarizes but does not assess the quality of the book.

Even worse, much of what the authors expect will be useful support for their books to end, because books are not read but text is quickly rewritten from the back cover, with misspelled character names, factual errors about the plot, and sometimes sometimes even mistakes about the theme, content, and all points of the book – all the dead gifts of a book are never read. Sometimes a plot summary then only produces confusion, and if a reader is confused, he won’t buy a book or spend his time reading it.

Some writers may not care about such details. If the reviews are good, it’s good enough to sell books, right? But if it’s misleading, readers won’t be happy when the book they buy doesn’t reflect what is said about them. Hopefully, when readers have that experience, they will know better than trusting the reviewer again.

Unfortunately, as long as money is involved, unauthorized reviewers will not leave anytime soon. But as a paying author, you have the right to read your book. Most writers, including myself, want legitimate feedback about what readers think about our books. We write our books as much as to entertain, inform, educate, or invoke emotional responses from our readers as we did to sell several books. As writers, we have the right to get better.

So what can the author do about this situation? I don’t see any point in being angry about this situation because I don’t think it will change anything. You can write to these people and complain, but it’s impossible to do good. Some things you can do are:

1 Do Your Research. Look at the history of the reviewers and what they have written in the past. How well is their work written – is it more than just a plot summary? Ask yourself whether it is worth your time and money to pay for such services, or even just pay shipping fees and give free books to such individuals.
2 Request Correction. If you review it, and the report has an error such as a misspelled character name or the book is incorrectly listed as a sequel to your last book, contact the individual and request that the correction be made. I have known several writers who have successfully corrected — especially when they paid for the initial work.
3 Sounds. Every review posted to Amazon gives you the opportunity to choose whether or not it helps you. Review ratings are not only based on how many posts they have. While finding out how Amazon ranks this remains a mystery, assessments affect rankings. Voting may not help or hurt a reviewer a lot, but it is better than nothing.
4 Learn from Experience. You have studied your lesson, and that may not be a difficult lesson, but you now know in the future to stay away from these immoral people. If you are traditionally published, your publisher might use such a review but you can ask otherwise. However, remember that publishing is a business and that makes it a dollar game; Unfortunately, an accurate representation of your book may not be as important as your publisher to make money.
5 Share Your Knowledge. Share with your colleagues your experience. That does not mean you are gossiping about reviewers. You help other writers make legitimate business decisions about how to spend their money. Legitimate business decisions may not end with illegal results.

Many good book reviewers are out there. Find them and build lasting relationships with them; then you don’t need to rely on the unauthorized to find readers and sell your books.